About 8,800 persons have applied for Portuguese citizenship since the start of a program that enables Sephardim from other countries who can prove their Jewish-Portuguese heritage to obtain nationality, and 713 have been successful in their effort. Only 1 candidate has so far been turned down. The program began in December of 2014, and applications…
(Haaretz) — About 10 years ago, while visiting the Museum of Jewish Art and History in Paris, Israeli journalist Naomi Keren noticed an ancient silver medallion that bore the likeness of Dona Gracia Nasi. “I was taken aback,” Keren says. “What I saw contradicted everything I knew about the use of art in connection with…
Spanish officials have helped rededicate two ancient Jewish cemeteries, as Portugal kicked off a $6 million project for preserving its Jewish heritage sites. The rededication ceremonies of the Jewish cemeteries of Lucena in southern Spain, dated to the 10th century A.D., and in Avila near Madrid, which was in use in the 12th century A.D.,…
A Portuguese rabbi and a Moroccan diplomat stood shoulder to shoulder in a Catholic cemetery here while 200 mourners howled in grief as they buried a resident of this island off the western coast of Africa. The foreigners had come to Cape Verde’s main cemetery earlier this month not to bury a local, but for…
Descendants of Jews from Cape Verde plan to rededicate a burial plot in the West African island state next week, largely thanks to funding by the king of Morocco. The rededication ceremony is scheduled to take place in Praia, the capital, on May 2 and is expected to be attended by a small group of…
Portuguese researchers have catalogued hundreds of secret markings that Jews left on structures in the northern Portuguese municipality of Seia in the 16th century, after their forced conversion to Christianity. The team’s three members – Alberto Martinho, Jose Levy Domingos and Luiza Metzker Lyra – say they found 500 markings in Seia, including coded Hebrew…
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